As much as I enjoyed (perhaps the wrong word for a text that repeatedly punched me in the gut) Volume I of My Struggle, the second book hit me even harder. Where the first book was obsessed with memory, this, despite being a nested series of flashbacks, is very much in the present. Where the first felt like the interior of Knausgaard's head, this details, at times perfectly, the collision of that interior with the outside. And it's agonizing and painful and brutally honest. And, at the very end, Knausgaard ties it all back to the first book in a way that is incredibly satisfying. Four more volumes, and I cannot wait. The second of six very long books --Knausgaard chronicles his Norwegian life, and he changes no names. He includes all minutiae. There are no chapters. Some people think it is a new style of writing that will become popular. I don't know quite what to compare it to--Proust, Pepys, or just anyone who writes down everything they're thinking, and everything they see. 1/10 of all Norway has read his books. He has received prizes. The title is confusing (Mein Kampf in German--Germany changed the title)...and what exactly is his struggle? Oddly enough I agree with his thoughts, and like his writing. Book 2 is about trying to be a writer while you're starting a family, and the humiliations of eating in a restaurant with three children under 5 years or working in a co-op preschool. He's not having a good time, ever really, but he doesn't seem too worried about it, he is just stating it like it is. Where will he go with this? Maybe I'll pick up Book 6. Otherwise, I feel like I've seen the exhibit, and know I'll never draw with that much intense detail. Will he continue to self-destruct? By now, everyone he's ever known has seen themselves in print and his wife has had a nervous breakdown. I guess the struggle is to just live; don't write it down.
What do You think about My Struggle Volume 2 (2000)?
Actual rating: 4.5More thoughts to (possibly) come.
—candy
